Free A Suspicious Affair by Bárbara Metzger

could. Dimm in turn introduced him to young Laughton, who was pathetically glad of the opportunity, having little in common with any of the three disparate groups except his antipathy toward the deceased. On hearing the earl’s name, Foster developed an instant case of hero worship for the retired army officer and begged Kimbrough to accompany the funeral party back to the Castle for refreshments.
    Carlinn was torn. He’d satisfied the conventions; now he wanted to put this whole sorry mess behind him. But the boy was a pigeon among these wolves, especially with the fiery temper gossip said he had. Leaving the young marquis alone would be like sending a raw recruit out to the front line. Kimbrough couldn’t do it, even if the bantling was one of the other murder suspects. He’d only have been defending his sibling. Kimbrough could understand that; he’d skewer anyone who offered harm to his own sister. So he accepted. And managed to get through half the curses he’d learned in the cavalry by the time a footman relieved him of his coat and gloves at Denning Castle.
    Many of the grave-side mourners had refused Boynton’s invitation to partake of the Castle’s hospitality in favor of starting the trip back to London before the day was too advanced. Others chose to toast Arvid at a nearby tavern, where they might also get up a game of cards or two. The working people mostly went back to their farms and businesses. The company was thin, therefore, when Kimbrough and Dimm entered the large drawing room.
    To one side gathered Boynton and his cronies, sampling Arvid’s wine cellar. Kimbrough nodded. He’d just seen most of those fellows. Near the enormous fireplace the dowager held court, accepting sympathy from the local matrons, the squire’s wife, and the mayor’s sister, all her bosom bows among the neighboring gentry. The earl bowed and murmured something about being sorry. He was sorry he wasn’t out riding his new chestnut stallion. But the dowager nodded and preened that the highest ranking gentleman in the shire—temporarily, naturally—had graced her son’s obsequies. It was fitting, of course, but one never knew about Kimbrough. She ignored the Runner’s presence entirely.
    And finally, in a window embrasure across the vast room, sat Arvid’s widow, her brother, and an older woman. They might have been lepers for all the attention paid them. A lesser woman might have retreated, taken to her rooms, but the duchess sat straight in her chair, chin raised. She was all in black, with a black lace veily thing on her head like those Spanish mantillas he’d seen on the Peninsula. Her hair was still down, loosely tied at the back of her neck. She had bottom, Carlinn had to give her that. And dignity.
    “Coventry, that’s what it is,” Dimm whispered as they crossed the Aubusson expanse. “The dowager’s got all the old biddies on her side, swearing the chit was responsible for Denning’s death. If she didn’t aim the pistol herself, according to the old besom, then it were the rackety brother. And it were the young duchess what forced Arvid to a life of sin in the first place.”
    “She couldn’t conceive of Boynton being guilty?”
    “No more’n you could picture your right hand up and cutting off your left. No, they got the gel drawn and quartered. She’ll be an exile out here, iffen the dowager has her way. A’ course, they’ll all have to change their tunes when the baby’s born, iffen it turns out to be the next duke. Or pay the piper. But that’s months away.”
    “Do I detect a note of sympathy for Denning’s doxy? I thought you chaps were supposed to be objective.”
    “I got daughters her age,” Dimm said with a shrug, pausing to relieve a passing footman of a handful of toast squares spread with goose liver and fish eggs. “And her life couldn’t of been easy, what I hear.”
    “She married him for his money and the title. That’s what she got.”
    Dimm clucked his tongue. “Were